Resident Evil
by Jorus C'baoth
Summary: Novelization of the 2002 GameCube remake. Abandoned.
1. Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

The night sky cast the trees of Raccoon Forest in darkness. A dire problem when looking for a helicopter that would be somewhere amongst them.

Chris Redfield kept looking out the window at the darkened forest. He was sitting next to Jill Valentine, wearing her blue uniform. Across from him was Barry Burton, his red vest contrasting the seat. Joseph Frost was next to him, cradling his assault shotgun in his arms and making sure his shoulder cam was working. Captain Wesker was sitting in the co-pilot seat, next to Brad Vickers in the pilot's seat. Chris could see neither's face, but he was sure that they were both concerned.

The S.T.A.R.S. Bravo team helicopter had gone down the night of the 23rd—yesterday—during a search of the Raccoon Forest for the so-called 'cannibal killers' that were supposedly hiding out somewhere in the dense forest. No reports had been made by any of the six members of Bravo team, or the Raccoon Police Department pilot gaining training from them—Kevin Dooley. If Edward had been piloting, this probably wouldn't have happened, but Chris didn't blame it all on Kevin. He was still a rookie, after all.

"Chris?" Wesker's voice called from the seat behind Barry. "Do you see anything?"

"No, I haven't found them yet."

"Jill?"

"Nothing," she said, the concern obvious.

"Barry?"

"Nothing yet, Captain," Barry rubbed at his beard after his report.

"Joseph?"

"Nothin' yet, sir."

"Keep looking." The order was directed to all of them in general.

Chris went back to his scan of the forest. Nothing. He was almost ready to ask Brad to let them all down in the nearest clearing, so they could search on foot, when Jill gasped beside him, "Look, Chris!" Chris scooted over and looked out her side of the chopper. Sure enough, there was the Bravo helicopter.

"You see it?" Wesker asked.

"Yeah, put us down, Brad," Jill answered.

"You heard the lady, Vickers, set us down."

The chopper descended to the ground, with everyone but Brad exiting and rushing for the Bravo bird. Joseph was the one who went inside. Chris watched as he swung his shotgun from side to side and checked out the interior of the Bravo helicopter. Chris caught a glimpse of a helmet when Joseph shouted and jumped out of the carriage, puking his guts out all over the grass below.

"What was it?" Wesker asked.

"Kevin. Dead."

"What?"

"Mauled, sir. By some kind of animal. Couldn't have been more than two hours."

"All right." Wesker turned to the rest of them. "Fan out and sweep the area. Looks like our cannibal killers are still somewhat close. Tracks, prints, anything. If you find a blade of grass that you didn't step on, report it."

Chris was used to military type drills, being a USAF wash-out. What he _wasn't_ used to, however, was dead pilots and missing teammates. It was like a bad dream.

He pulled his Samurai Edge M92F/S Beretta out of his holster and held it ready. He was aiming the muzzle at nothing but the sky above, noticing a thick amount of clouds rolling in. A storm was coming. He started forward, focusing on nothing but watching for everything.

Then he saw a flicker of movement behind the trees.

He spun in the direction and aimed the Samurai Edge that way. Nothing. Maybe he was just seeing things. A death in the S.T.A.R.S. was something that could rattle any member of the elite group.

There it was again.

This time, however, he knew he wasn't seeing things. Joseph had also spun his assault shotgun in the direction of the movement.

"Joseph, you see anything?" Chris asked.

"No. Nothing."

Then, as Joseph lowered his shotgun, the animal ran at him.

It was a dog of some kind. Maybe a Doberman, but slightly bigger. Though Chris couldn't see very well in the darkness of the forest, the dogs appeared to have large sections of their flesh torn away from their bodies—he could even see through the stomach of one and saw the one behind it.

It took a few moments to realize that Joseph was being eaten alive.

The rest of the team other than Jill must have been frozen by the feast, because only her weapon was firing. Though, it didn't seem that she was hitting anything. She ran out without taking any of them out.

Then one of the dogs leapt at her.

It took Chris a fraction of a second to raise his weapon and launch a bullet directly into the side of the dog's head. Jill herself fell backward, a drip of blood running down her face. Chris couldn't tell if it was from the dog or Jill. He ran over to her, helping her up. "Let's go!" Chris breathed.

A look back at the dogs told Chris that they had ten or less seconds before they got to the two S.T.A.R.S. members. Chris made sure that Jill was half a pace ahead of him during their run. He heard the sound of a helicopter directly above him. He looked up—

—and there was the Alpha team helicopter heading straight ahead.

"That's Brad!" Chris shouted. "Where the hell's he going?!"

He heard the dogs behind him getting ever closer.

_Get Jill outta the way,_ he thought, giving her a slight nudge forward and then turning around to face the dogs.

The closest dog was already jumping at him, so Chris raised his arm, as he and the rest of S.T.A.R.S. had been taught in training. He closed his farthest eye, keeping the closest on the dog.

Then the dog's head exploded.

This had stopped the dogs as much as it had Chris, who looked to the side the gunshot came from and saw Captain Wesker standing there, aiming his weapon. He said, "Chris, this way!" Chris looked to the way Wesker was already moving in and saw a large house in the thick mist that was forming in the air.

Chris shouted, "Make for that mansion!"

As he ran, he spun around, ran backwards, and popped a few shots off at the still sitting dogs. This got them moving again, and Chris fired another few rounds off. To his right, Chris heard the sounds of Barry's .44 Colt, then behind him another couple of dogs went down.

Jill was the first to reach the mansion. She shoved the doors open and Chris could see lights on. Maybe the owners were home. Barry followed, then Wesker. Chris was the last one—

—then a dog got between him and the doors.

"Shut them!" Wesker shouted, scrambling at the doors. It didn't help, though, a dog got inside.

Now alone in the forest, Chris looked for another spot to enter the house. There it was, to the right: a lit window. He decided to risk hit. He ran for the window, turned and popped off another round at a dog, then jumped into the house through the window.

Jill was the one who put the bullet into the dog's head. Barry snatched the lock, while Wesker walked around the large room they'd entered.

Jill looked around. The mansion they were in looked old and decrepit from the outside, and while the inside was dusty, it sure wasn't as bad as it should have been from the outside look.

"What is this place?" Barry asked, out of breath.

"It sure isn't your ordinary house," Wesker wasn't as breathless, but he was slightly heaving.

A thought suddenly dawned on Jill, a thought she said out loud, "Chris!" She walked over to the doors but was stopped by Wesker.

"Jill, don't! You don't wanna go back out there."

"But, Chris—"

A gunshot came from the direction of a double door on the left side of the room. They all waited for a few moments when two more shots came.

"What was that?" Barry asked.

"Chris?" Wesker considered.

_No..._

"Jill." Wesker turned to her. "You go and investigate."

"I'm going, too," Barry already started for the doors. "Chris and I go back a long way."

"All right. I'll stay and secure this area. Report in if anything goes wrong."

Barry and Jill both nodded, then left the room.

Jill was the first to enter the dining room. She swept along the length and depth of the room with her Samurai Edge. A large grandfather clock was ticking away in the center of the room along the right wall. The room itself was dominated by a large dining table, at which there were three candle holders placed on the edges and the center. Above them was the balcony that connected to the main hall, at least from what she could surmise based on the look of the two rooms. A very grand fireplace was burning at the far edge of the room, and there seemed to be one other door.

"A dining hall," Barry said, stating the obvious.

He walked over to the far edge of the room, keeping his Python firmly in hand. Jill herself made a slow travel to the other edge. She noted the typewriter on the edge closest to the door, a set of ink ribbons next to it. As she passed the ticking clock, she noted that the 3, the 6, the 9 and the 12 were replaced by a sword, shield, helmet, and armor. A golden plate on the wall above the fireplace looked extremely out of place.

"Take a look at this," Barry said, looking at her. Jill quickened her pace to the fireplace. She made a mental note that the fire looked at least a couple days old. There must have been a lot of wood if it still hadn't burned out yet.

Jill's heart skipped a beat when she saw the pool of blood in front of the fireplace.

"Oh God..." she whispered. Twenty-three years of life, a tour in Delta Force, and membership in the elite RPD S.T.A.R.S. unit couldn't have prepared her for the pain that came with the thought that the blood in front of her could belong to one of her teammates.

"It's fresh. A day old at the latest."

"But it doesn't belong to Chris, right?"

"I hope not."

Jill looked to her right at the door. "I'm gonna go check this out, you all right in here?"

"Yeah. Hurry up, though."

"Right."

She opened the door, making a short sweep with the Samurai Edge as she entered. There was another door almost directly in front of her, another to the right down the hall. The hall either ended or turned off at that end. To the left—

—was someone hunched over on the floor.

Chris_?_

The person was wearing green, just like Chris's uniform. She holstered the Samurai Edge, but kept her holster unsnapped. If he wasn't Chris, he could be one of the cannibal killers.

She walked over to him, checking for any visible wounds. She wasn't a medic, but she could give decent field care. She couldn't tell what the man was hunched over yet, but it would only be a matter of time. She stepped into the small sitting area and almost threw up.

The man in green was _eating_ someone.

Not just _someone_, but a S.T.A.R.S. member.

Jill drew her Samurai Edge and pointed it directly at the man's bald head. Closer inspection made her notice the scabs all over the back of his head. He'd apparently heard her, because he turned his head around. His mouth was covered in dried _and_ fresh blood. His left eye rolled back in his head. His nose was _missing_.

This was one of the cannibals.

Jill backed into the wall as soon as the man stood up. He turned his whole body to her, revealing a large, bloody wound on his right arm, as if he'd been bitten there. A hungry moan escaped his lips. Her handgun was still pointed at his head, but this time was directly between his dead eyes.

He was a little bit more than just a cannibal.

Jill kept the weapon trained on the spot of his forehead that was between his eyes. Another hungry moan came from the man's mouth. She spared a passing glance at the corpse on the floor and saw Kenneth Sullivan, a large open wound in his neck—no, his neck _was_ a large open wound. Between the head and the body, there was _no_ neck. His fall to the floor must have damaged the video camera on his shoulder, because the tape had been ejected.

She brought her eyes back up to the cannibal in front of her. He hadn't moved at all since standing. She slowly crept along the wall and to the right. She needed to make it to the door to the dining room, she needed to get to Barry. She was almost halfway to the door when the cannibal began to lurch toward her, reaching with his left hand out toward her.

Jill took a shot—the man's knee. It would be best to slow him down further, so she could escape to the dining hall. Not proper police procedure, but necessary in this situation. The man fell onto his wounded knee with a loud "Auh!" sound coming from his mouth. Jill reached the door, turned the knob, then looked back at the cannibal—

—and saw him standing up, practically oblivious to the pain that a nine-millimeter bullet in the knee would cause.

She opened the door, and virtually ran into the dining room. Barry stood up immediately.

"Barry!"

"Jill?"

Jill reached him, then fell onto her knees beside him. The cannibal entered the room behind her. "Look out! It's one of those cannibals!"

Barry aimed his .44 Colt Python directly at the cannibal's forehead. "Freeze!" he shouted, cocking back the hammer. The cannibal didn't stop, he kept lurching for Jill, his arms outstretched like some kind of zombie. Another hungry moan filled the room. "Stop!" Barry shouted, supporting his right hand with his left. He lowered the weapon as the cannibal got closer, redirecting the barrel toward the chest. He squeezed the trigger. The cannibal fell backward, into the wall. He did _not_, however, stop his trek toward the two S.T.A.R.S. members.

"What the hell?!" Barry shouted, keeping his weapon raised. Jill raised her Samurai Edge, took aim at the skull, and squeezed the trigger. The round went cleanly through the left eye and exited out the back of the head, splattering blood, bone and brain matter all over the wall behind the insanely tough cannibal. "What the hell?" Barry repeated, less hysterical this time.

"He ate Kenneth..." was all Jill cold respond with at the moment.

"What? Ken?!" Barry rushed into the hallway and to the left. Moments later, he emerged with the tape from Kenneth's camera in his hand. "Son of a bitch..."

Jill walked over to him. Kenneth had been one of Barry's friends. "We should report this to Wesker," Jill said, jerking her head slightly to the doors to the main hall.


	2. Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO

Chris couldn't open the door that lead in the direction of the front door. It was locked by some strange type of lock he'd never seen before. He knew that Jill was good with lock picking, but she was on the other side of the door. He'd decided to go the other route, turning the corner and going to the left. He caught a glimpse of something shiny underneath the glass cabinet along the wall to his left. He moved the cabinet and found the shiny item to be a small dagger.

_Ya never know,_ he thought, stuffing his find into a safe area on his belt.

He turned the corner and noticed another glass cabinet. Again, something shiny was underneath it. He walked toward it―

―only to stop in his tracks when something hit the window to his right.

He whipped around, aiming his Samurai Edge at the window. A small hairline crack was going diagonally upward from the lower right corner. If it had been the dogs, he didn't see why they didn't just jump in through the window he'd come from.

He reached the cabinet and pushed it back. Underneath was a magazine for a Beretta. He picked it up and checked it―a full fifteen rounds. Who would leave a handgun magazine underneath a cabinet? It was slightly obvious that there had been _someone_ in the house recently. Maybe somebody had dropped it and it slid under the cabinet.

But that didn't sell. Unless the person had bled either in the room through the locked door or the room through the door to his right, there had been no one wounded in this room―no blood stains. That had to mean that the magazine was deliberately placed there...

But he didn't dwell on it. He had bigger problems than _Who left the nine-mil mag under the cabinet_, so he walked over to the door and checked it. Not locked. He slowly turned the doorknob and looked into the room. It lead into another hallway. There was a metal door ahead and on the right wall that seemed to go outside, based on its look. A wooden door ahead and to the left, on the wall opposite him.

He walked out into the hallway carefully, checking the metal door first. Locked. Next came the wooden door. It opened into a nicely antique bathroom that was relatively clean except for the rot. The bathtub in front of him was still full, the ceiling fan rotating above him, the mirror recently wiped off.

Who had been in this house?

He walked over to the tub and noticed what looked like another one of those daggers like the one he'd picked up earlier. He reached in to grab for it―

―and a decayed, partial hand reached out of the tub, grabbing for his face.

Chris fell back, into the counter behind him. A man with shaggy brown hair―or what had once _been_ shaggy brown hair―sat up in the tub and looked at him with rolled back eyes. The man couldn't have been alive underneath that water, unless he'd just gotten in there. And the hand―there were only two fingers of the right hand. The other three appeared to have been eaten off. A large section of flesh was torn away from the area around the left eye―making it white in the middle of red.

He raised the Samurai Edge and pointed it at the man's chest.

_He's like a fuckin' zombie..._ Chris thought, looking the man square in the dead eyes. That was the only thing that seemed to connect with him about this man, _zombie_.

He didn't attempt to make contact with this man, something about him told Chris that he wouldn't speak. The man had the chain for the drain plug around his neck, as if he'd been choked by it. The water in the tub was draining out. Chris could clearly see the object he'd glimpsed earlier: a small key.

But his attention was drawn away from the key and at the man―the zombie―in front of him. It had tried to get out of the tub and fallen onto the floor in front of him. Chris slid to the left, to the door. He kept his Samurai Edge trained on the creature in front of him. It didn't stand up, however. One quick inspection of its legs told him that it wasn't _going_ to get up any time soon―both were broken and decayed.

_Whew..._

He opened the door and eased out, shutting it behind him. That bathroom was off-limits, now.

He continued down the hall―which was a right turn, then a left turn coming out into a sitting area, then another left turn which had a wooden door. He opened it up, discovering a square room with an intricate design on the wall. On all _four_ walls. And the floor, and the ceiling. The whole _room_ was an intricate design. He walked toward the other door on the opposite side of the room. It opened into a small sitting room with a fireplace on one wall, a coffee table, two chairs and a couch. On the table was a set of ink ribbons and another of those daggers like Chris had found earlier.

On the wall opposite him was a shotgun.

He walked over to it, holstered his Samurai Edge, and pulled it off of the wall. The two racks that had held it up lifted with it.

_What the hell?_

He checked it for ammunition―it was full―and then walked to the door and left the room. A trickle of dust hit his shoulder, a sound caught his attention. On both, he looked upward and saw the ceiling with the intricate design lowering.

The room was a death trap.

He ran to the door that went out into the hallway. It was locked. Who in the _hell_ had locked the door?! Then he thought about it: the ceiling had begun to lower when he took the shotgun, the door must have locked as well, further adding to the trap. He ran back to the other door and went back into the room. He could still hear the sliding of the stone the ceiling was made out of. He walked back over to the racks the shotgun was placed on and put it back. They lowered under the weight, then the sounds of the ceiling raising to its original spot could be heard through the wall.

_Thank God._

He'd need to find a counter-weight to use in place of the shotgun, that way he could take it and not have a _Raiders of the Lost Ark_ trap kill him.

He left the room, exited out the death room, then reentered the hallway. There was a double door in front of him, he took that. It opened into _yet another hallway_ (the house was starting to seem less like a _house_ than a building with multiple interconnecting hallways) that had three doors that he could see, with an offshoot to the right at the end of the hall. The first door on the right was unlocked, so Chris left it alone for the moment. The second door on the right was locked, some kind of elegant design carved on the handle. The third door, on the left and across from the offshoot, was also locked and this one had an armor design on the lock.

A footstep behind him.

Chris spun around, whipping the Samurai Edge in that direction. Another 'zombie' was walking toward him. He had no hesitation; he squeezed the trigger and split his right eye open.

Another door was just past the corpse of the zombie. It was a metal door, similar to the one he'd passed in the other hall that was locked.

_Might be a way out. Better check it out._

He walked over to it, turned the knob.

The door opened.

He walked outside―in a manner of speaking. He was in some kind of garden corridor. It was blocked off from the forest by a greenhouse-like plant holding wall. At the other end was another door. On the wall a few feet from the other door was an indentation with another indentation inside of it―the latter octagonal. He walked over to it, inspecting the indentations. There was writing on the larger indentation, to the side of the octagonal one. It was worn, however, and illegible.

_Damn..._

He checked the door. Locked. There went the way out. The door inside, however, might lead him to something needed to open this door. So he turned around, reentered the mansion, and entered through the unlocked door. It lead to a small hallway with paintings hanging on the walls, then a more open area that Chris couldn't see all of. He could see the first few steps of a flight of stairs. He walked into the more open area―

―and ended up face-to-face with another zombie.

Before Chris could raise the Samurai Edge to kill it, it locked arms with him. Chris fought off, making sure the black, gnarled teeth of the zombie never reached him. If these zombies were like the ones in movies, he'd die and become a zombie if bitten by one.

_The dagger!_ His brain shouted at him. But it wouldn't work―if he let go of the zombie, it'd be closer to biting him.

So, instead, he pushed it away, making it hit the wall. Then he raised the Samurai Edge and squeezed the trigger. A smattering of blood hit the wall behind it, while it slumped against the wall.

He heard a thump from above him. He looked along the stair railing, then up at the second floor of the room. Nothing.

Then a zombie stepped into view, leaning against the railing.

Chris decided to avoid it until he checked out the small door in the wall across from the stairs―which he hadn't noticed until he swept the Samurai Edge across the room. The door knob turned, the door opened. The room was small―a storeroom―with a large trunk on the wall opposite, a set of boxes directly ahead, a typewriter on a table to his right, and cleaning/gardening supplies next to the trunk and on a shelf above the trunk.

He checked out the trunk, found a can of ink ribbon, a green plant that he deduced was a mountain herb, another Beretta magazine―which he pocketed―and another dagger like the one he'd found earlier. He took the dagger, as well, then closed the trunk. The plant and ink ribbons wouldn't help.

_Just a zombie to deal with upstairs._

Jill knelt down next to Kenneth's corpse. A rush of sadness overwhelmed her, she almost cried.

But she didn't have that luxury.

When she and Barry had gone back to the main hall, Wesker had been gone. They spent a few moments looking for him, but found nothing. They'd decided that the main hall would be their rendezvous point―in case something happened. Then Barry gave her one of her old lockpicks she'd given him. Jill had a S.T.A.R.S. reputation as being the _Master of Unlocking_, which she despised.

Barry had gone back through the dining room doors, while Jill had taken the other room. A locked door and a chest in front of an open doorway told her that this was not yet the way to go.

So she went back to the dining hall. Barry was no where to be found―he must have gone into the hall that Kenneth's body was laying in―so Jill was on her own. When she entered the hall and saw that Barry was no where to be found, she figured he'd gone through one of the other doors.

So she stopped to pay her respects to Kenneth before moving on.

She stood up, taking a glance at the door to her left. The others down the hall were locked―either by some weird setup using medieval objects or just from the other side of the door. The only one left to check was the one to her left. The doorknob turned, the door opened. The creek was a little too loud, but nothing was around to get in her way. She was in a hallway, now, with a desk or dresser of some kind a few feet ahead of her. A corner at the desk, with a table down the hall that way. A flight of stairs was just in front of her, which went around the room. There was a Beretta magazine on the table, along with a bird cage. Jill wasn't one to look a gift horse in the mouth, so she jammed the mag into her hip pouch.

A corpse was propped up against the wall to her right. A man, possibly in his mid-thirties, but undeterminable due to the rot that covered his body. Jill immediately thought of the cannibal that had killed Kenneth. Whoever these cannibals were, they were going to get some S.T.A.R.S. justice once the entire team regrouped.

No other doors or anything in the room, she'd have to take the stairs. She went up, taking a look at the top of the stairs from the middle platform. There was a door up there, but that was it. She took a deep breath, continued up the stairs, and then through the door.

On the floor directly ahead of her was a corpse.

This one, however, was different from the others. Its skin some kind of pale red color, as if it had been dipped in blood. The tips of its fingers seemed to be..._claws_.

She forced herself to look away from it and saw the door down the hall from it. She made a mental note of its location, then turned to her right, toward another door.

And another cannibal.

This one was worse than the last―his entire left arm was gone. His plaid sweater-vest was discolored with blood. What was wrong with these guys if they could take these large wounds without so much as a look of pain on their faces?

Then she remembered that she'd compared the first one to a zombie―maybe she wasn't so far off.

She raised her Samurai Edge and aimed squarely at the man's forehead. A trigger squeeze later, and he was down on the ground.

_Easy enough, right, Jill?_ She asked herself. Something told her that there was a bit more beneath the surface of this.

She tried the door next to the one she'd just shot. Locked. There was a bit more hallway to check, judging by the look into the mirror. She turned the corner and continued. Down the hall a bit and on the left side was a small statue on a pedestal. The statue was holding a small golden arrow. At the tip of the arrow was an arrowhead made out of some emerald looking object.

_Important, maybe?_

Jill took the arrow, then twisted the arrowhead off. It came off easily, telling her that it was a part of some puzzle.

_The question is: Where's the puzzle?_

She looked down at the ground in front of another mirror. There was a second handgun magazine lying there. She took it, placed it and the arrowhead in her side pack, and continued on down the hall.

The third door she'd come to was locked, and the fourth opened into the balcony of the dining room. It was darker upstairs―the only light coming from downstairs―but she could see just as well. S.T.A.R.S. training involved nighttime combat, so her eyes could easily adjust.

There was a cannibal/zombie walking by a statue on the other side of the room. It was a man, anywhere between twenty and forty, and he was just wandering around aimlessly, as if nothing was going on. He hit the railing at one point, then stopped, just hanging over it.

_Should I take care of him now, or later?_

She decided now was the time, so she took careful aim and fired right at the back of his raggy head. He slumped further foreward and fell to the dining room below. One less to worry about.

A door was to her right, but it was locked. Jill sighed and shook her head. Sword emblem beneath the lock. What was it with this house and these damned locks? She disregared the thought and walked toward the double doors that would take her back into the main hall.

Once she was back in the light of the main hall, her eyes readjusted and she took a breath. This was the only room in the house, it seemed, that _didn't_ smell like rotted shit.

A glint of metal at the mid point on the stairway between the first and second floor caught her eye. It looked like...a doorknob? A door was hidden amidst the large picture that took up that wall? It was worth checking out. She walked down the stairs and saw that, indeed, there was a door there. She opened it.

There was a graveyard beyond the door. An outdoor graveyard. There were very few windows on this interior side of the mansion, so she couldn't see if anybody was in any of the other rooms. There was a small fenced-off area in front of her, and a little trail leading to the largest grave ahead and to the left.

She took the trail and saw that a portion of another fence was broken off, this small area leading to a heavy grouping of trees. She made a mental note, and then continued toward the large grave.

There was an image carved into the grave. It looked suspiciously familar―then it clicked, the place she'd taken the arrowhead. She withdrew it from her side pack and held it up to the gravestone. Sure enough, there was the hole to set it in. Whoever made this place was obviously either a genious with traps and puzzles, or a complete fucking whacko.

The grave began to move. Jill backed away from it just as _it_ backed away from _her_. In its place there was now a large opening in the ground, with a staircase leading down.

_Do I take the low road or stay here?_

She knelt down and saw that there was at least some kind of light down there. It was probably like the fireplace in the dining room, because shadows and orange light were bouncing all over the base of the stairs. There were sounds of some kind of wheel turning. The whole thing looked very medieval.

_I can afford a look._

She walked down the stairs and entered what looked to be, for all intents and purposes, a dungeon. To her left were four stone faces coming out of the walls, each different. One was missing a nose, another its eyes, the third the mouth, and the last all three. In the middle of the room, hanging from the ceiling by four chains, was a coffin. It looked to be at least thirty years old. On the far side of the room was a small pedistal with something small and flat on top of it. She carefully passed under the old coffin and saw that the small, flat object was a book of some kind. Purple, with a strap around the side to keep it closed, and not nearly as old as the rest of the room.

Jill picked up the book and turned it around. On the back was a key with a diamond on the end opposite the tip. She took it out of its place and turned it around in her hand. There was a sword engraved into the diamond.

_The weird medieval locks. This is one of those keys._

She pocketed the key, then found that the strap was now loose. She pulled the book open and found three capital words on the first page.

**BOOK OF CURSE**

The next page had more writing on it.

**the four masks...**

**a mask that speaks no evil...**

**a mask that smells no evil...**

**a mask that sees no evil...**

**a mask that cannot speak, see**

**or smell evil...**

**when all four fall into place,**

**evil will awaken**

She didn't know what to make of it, but it was certainly disturbing. Jill shut the book and put it down on the pedistal upon which she found it. Hopefully, the four masks that it talked about were easy to find or useless, either one.

She looked back at the faces on the wall.

_The masks must go on those faces._ She shivered thinking about what those masks looked like. The faces on the walls were creepy as hell.

Jill walked back up the stairs and back out into the graveyard. She walked over the the fenced off area and saw something on the ground inside the fence. It was round, about the size of... a face. It was one of the masks! She put her arm through the fence and tried to reach inside, but her arms were too short. The mask was over six feet away. She walked over to the fence gate and tried to pry it open, but the lock was too strong.

_Well... I guess I'll have to find some other way inside._

She leaned against the fence and let out a sigh. This was destined to be a _long_ night.


End file.
